


River Styx

by bismuth (etorphine)



Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Gen, Graphic Description, Religious Imagery & Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:35:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27671450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etorphine/pseuds/bismuth
Summary: The world never taught him to be kind. Not a detective with a letter-name or any bastard child at the orphanage; not a single teacher, nor his dead and long-gone family.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	River Styx

**Author's Note:**

> written for the 2015 mello zine, [✞ ONLY I CAN DO IT ✞](https://gumroad.com/l/KxYQ/numberone).

✞ 

## Blood

The world never taught him to be kind. Not a detective with a letter-name or any bastard child at the orphanage; not a single teacher, nor his dead and long-gone family.

_You see that kid?_

No man with the influence of a mobster God could convince him otherwise with all the money in the world. Not with the fat of his sausage-fingers encased in thick rings or the tailored suit he wore as he swindled the glass of scotch.

Not when he brushed the kid's cheek and told him, "Just you wait, kiddo. Soon, everyone’ll know not to fuck with ya."

He never had the patience.

_Be careful around him._

He was a good shot. He got the old man right between the eyes at the table, just the two of them in the whole room. The hole in his head was a neat and dark; like Jesus' wounds on the cross. Red rivulets ran down the folds of his face, the whites of his eyes, on the collar of his button-down, on Italian-brand lapels and the shiny gold of his necklace, dulled down by spurts of crimson.

_You know what he did?_

The blood was warm enough to feel past a layer of leather. The smell hung bloated in the air, coating the linings of his nostrils, the inner corners of his mouth, the blocked voice in his throat. His arms were weak when he grabbed ahold of the old man's shoulders and knocked the dining chair onto the ground, the blood leaking into a burst of fireworks over the marble.

He wanted it to be over. He wanted it to be done.

_He killed the old man._

The body stared at him as he propped it against the wall, a bright smear of a bulletwound leaking against the off-white. When he closed his eyes, all he saw was that stare. That mouth ajar, asking him what he was doing with that gun, never expecting Judas within the familia.

The squelch of his neck vessels exploding when he eased in the knife. The resistance of flesh, still pulpy and warm from the freshly deceased. The blood.

So much blood.

_He brought his head in. Not even Kira could do that._

_They call him Mello._

✞ ✞ 

## Void

Was this Hell?

There was nothing but darkness. Bits of plastic stuck to his face and hair, clinging onto his skin until he couldn't feel it anymore. Heat so warm it felt like a snake coiled around his thighs, his arms, the back of his neck. Darkness clung to the corners of his vision like the fading credits to a film with a bad ending.

There was the noxious smell of soot, the billowing gusts of ash and wet soil on his elbows against the rough tar, the sounds of yelling, a flatline of ringing that never wanted to go away.

This was it, wasn't it?

This was what he had been told when he was younger. The blackness of death, the terror so hot it felt cold against his sternum, until he could no longer fill in the body he was inhabiting.

Had anybody ever told him that he couldn't move in Hell?

There was a weight on him, pinning him down, crushing his chest and lungs until he breathed in tar in shallow dragon puffs and scratchy wheezes. Was it the weight of the Cross? The weight of his sins? _O God, please, if I'm dead, why do I still need to breathe?_

Or was he merely in the process of dying?

The wires that attached his hand to his arm to his motor cortex were disconnected, somehow; he was locked deep within his head. He heard police sirens drive closer over the sound of crackling fire and tumbling cement. And hidden beneath all of that was the ringing of his phone, edging in the corner of his consciousness so quietly he wasn't sure if it was real.

Were there cellphones in Hell?

More tumbling cement, louder now, over the ringing. It was so close. Hissing soil, footsteps. Another ringtone loop.

He heard someone say, "I've got you."

 _Satan? God? Which one is it?_ he wanted to ask, but the words didn’t leave his body.

✞ ✞ ✞ 

## Vigil

The church was empty. Small flames flickered while dancing on the candle rink of the altar; they shuddered at him, hiding themselves against the wick, a mosaic of golden glimmers from down the aisle.

The carpet crunched beneath him as he walked; the warm mahogany of church pews and nostalgia of oak wrapped around him like a bedtime story. Outside the stained glass windows, splashed with raindrops, the sun was only about to set, casting a fiery glow within the air. There were still a few hours until the mass started at midnight.

Mass was a symbol of his childhood. The glint of the candles, the papery taste of the host, the hushed hymns, the motes floating alit in the dusty sunlight -- they were all relics from the buried past. But something dragged him back to kneel at the very last pew by the heavy door; the same force that drew his motorcycle towards the church symbol on the road instead of heading back home.

He crossed himself, brought his rosary to his lips, and closed his eyes.

His gloves lay harmless on the ground, but still, he wanted not to touch the wood around him, lest stain them all. He could not dare dip his blood-soaked fingers into holy water in the presence of the Son of God, hanging limp at the Cross several feet above the altar, plated and rusted. Even after accepting that God was a fable, there was a tug that led him back to a cocoon of childhood and safety, that forbade him from disrespecting the only place he'd grown up to call home, even more than the walls of the institution. The place that might accept the apologies that nobody wanted to hear.

_O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee,_  
_and I detest all my sins because I dread the loss of Heaven and the pains of hell,_  
_But most of all because they have offended Thee, my God,  
Who art all good and deserving of all my love._

A bang outside interrupted his prayer. He inhaled sharply, opening his eyes to the blurring constellation of candles, the darkness of the church, the frames of Jesus' death and resurrection surrounding him on the austere walls. He was still alone.

What had he to say to God when he was already unsalvageable? Why would God want to communicate with a fallen child, one so far from grace that there was nothing He could do to absolve the blaze of glory, the dirtiness of his palms, the scar that etched itself across his face?

His hands had touched things supernatural; he had locked eyes with a God of Death, and told it to do his bidding. There was no Heaven to set him free, and no Hell to punish him rightfully. There was nobody listening to the prayers he recited, no recipient to the words that put itself out the minute it left his lips.

But he continued, clasping his rosary,

_I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace,_  
_to confess my sins,_  
_to do penance,_  
_and to amend my life._  
_Amen._

He shifted his fingers, clasping the bead above the rosary. He couldn’t remember what those words first meant to him when he memorized them, only that they were devoid of meaning now. And lying to God was an act of defiance that even he could never do -- both he and God knew what he was capable of, which commandments he'd broken the more he headed down his path. But if God wasn't real, wasn't he lying only to himself?

But if God wasn't real, then at least he could accept that this was for him. To melt away the filth that had etched itself on his body like second skin. To bear his heart out somewhere, where it wouldn't kill him to be clean.

Perhaps he was a fool to long for forgiveness so late in the game, so far gone, so lost already. And perhaps it was the most foolish thing now that even after coming face-to-face with the very confirmation that every man had sought for thousands of years, that there was no afterlife but nothingness beyond our Earthly homes, that he considered his survival thus far a gift from God that perhaps he could right his wrongs.

He was never coldly logical, never entirely rational. And even if he could not find the words to talk to God himself, then all he had were others' words, spoken before him, voicing what he could never bring himself to say.

Old habits die hard.

✞ ✞ ✞ ✞ 

## Angel

Death was a searing white heaviness in his body, throwing him into a collapsed wall of an abandoned church. It was shattering glass and the sound of silence beyond it -- and it was empty, as he'd expected, as the Death Gods had told him once upon a time.

But in death, nothing was unknown. Not a mystery left unsolved. Mihael knew that he had won.

_I'll wait for you there._


End file.
